Reviews by silenius:

This is my standby favorite at the Hopleaf. When I can't decide what to have next, I always go back to this one.

The menu says "Launched by 4 Ghent brewing engineering students in June 2000, Brouwerij de Musketiers brews this deep golden, fruity, spicy, and densely malty ale. Fewer than 2000 cases brewed per year. Has become a connosieur's choice in Belgium."

I paid $6 at the bar.

On the label is a drawing of a man's head opening his mouth sticking out his tongue to apparently catch a drop of beer. Behind the man are the Dutch lyrics to what is either a song or poem that roughly translates into something about dying in/for beer and angels weeping and God taking mercy on the man for his behavior. I don't speak Dutch and the on-line translation was iffy.

The beer starts with a huge head in the Troubadour branded tulip glass. There was substantial lacing as well. The smell is light and herbally pleasant.

This is a nicely balanced beer. Not an in-your-face monster. A long pleasant finish makes this my #1 session beer.

More User Reviews:

A nice find at the Total Wine store here in Greensboro,pours a slightly hazy golden with a touch of orange tint with a big blooming rocky head and leaves a sheet of foam down my glass.Aromas of ripe oranges and big honey notes with a touch of spice to round it out nice.Taste is hugely fruity orange and pineapple wich I dont get in many beers thats for sure but sweet ripe pinapple is very appetizing to go along with a touch of sweeter spice and smoke.Wow a real nice Belgian here a great find if anyone else finds it take its solid.

Smell  Malt and bread mix with big fruit (banana, peach, orange, kiwi, to name a few) along with spices that are hard to pinpoint. Very entertaining.

Taste  The orange and peach come more in the flavor. The spices arent hot or peppery, theyre more like cinnamon or paprika. Theres also some yeast in there along with alcohol, but mostly the big fruit.

Mouthfeel  Theres a nice carbonation to this one and its rather chewy.

Drinkability  I thought this was a little too citrusy to go down well, and the complex mix of flavors didnt blend well.

Served this last bottle of a four-pack in a tulip glass. Three fingers of clumpy, sticky, white head settle slowly leaving large patches of lacing on the edges of the glass. A solid thick later of large-bubble head sits atop a hazy straw body.

Smells exactly how a Belgian blonde should smell: clovey, yeasty, with a touch of banana. Also smells like yellow cake batter when it warms.

The taste is again clovey, phenolic with bready yeast and banana flavors. Spicy on the tongue and slightly sour on the finish. Lots of flavor for a modest ABV.

Mouthfeel is fairly spicy and sharp, but also leaves a bit of a silky coating on your tongue. Nevertheless, pretty light and certainly very drinkable. Recommended.

Slightly hazy medium gold appearance, nice tight-bubbled head of 1/2 an inch and good duration. Laces thickly in fine crystalline sheets. Yeasty aroma, light honey. Mouthfeel is medium and the carbonation is a good match, plenty but not overdone. Starts out straw-like, but in the vein of Chinese bird's nest soup, sweet but with a sense of mustiness. Countering this rich experience is a lemony citrus element that's not strident and mellows to a sweet sugary sense. Finishes with lots of aftertaste, a little cloying in the long run. No real hops detectable. Not a lot of beers have struck me as similar, but its heavy for a Saison and not really up my alley.

The new bottle is a bit more classy looking than the picture shown. 750 ML synthentic cork w/ cage. Poured into Stella Artois 16 oz. glass.

This pours out looking like a blond bombshell, a yellow gold, only slightly hazy with a classic, lively Belgian carbonation that creates and maintains a bubbly, light white head with a soft, high, creamy crown. dissipation is very slow thanks to the activivty of the rushing bubbles to the top. Right on.

The aroma is avery authenticaly Belgian and very unique, it's a very natural-world smell, earthy with dried hay fields in the middle of summer, assorted cold cuts and veggies, Cream 'o corn scented malt, thick and sweet. The hops provide a spicey, peppery edge along with the yeast strain.

This Belgian Pale ale is packed with flavor, for a light ale, this one is full of good stuff, the malt is very impressive and taste's just like canned Cream 'o corn with a delightful dried wheat flavor. The yeast packs a punch, it's peppery, earthy and gives off a serious complexity of flavor's that include: garden veggies and subtle fruity flavor's, mostly wild berries. The hops are earthy with a dry-bitter finish. This complex but light and refreshing brew is VERY easy to drink, but it's soo complex I found myself savorring and sipping this one. This would be the Brew I would suggest for a nice introduction in the world of Belgian Pale ale's, very authentic.

Matte sandstorm tan topped with a modest fluff of soiled ivory.
Wheat hull nose spiced with apple butter, cinnamon pears, lemon rinds, and clover.
Begins with a wheat graininess augmented with cotton candy. Remains sugary (but not heavy) sweet, as fruits enter, each in their candied form. Apples, lemons and lime (but not in sour form), pears, pineapple, strawberry, and fried plantains. For a second, the vast sweetness might have people reaching to check their blood sugars, but the yeast quells it, the the hops slaughter any remnants. The middle is ripe with bread dough and white pepper, then the end is all dried lemongrass and brown hay. A minor trace of spun sugar lingers through the close.
It balances a medium-thick (but not soupy) body atop a pinhead of effervescent (but not fizzy) bead. This has the levity and the liveliness to pull off the accomplished oversweetness. Despite what it should be, this is miles from cloying, or even mildly hindered with the unattached sugars.
And thus, a quaffer is born. It's all fruit punch and hay, but it works well here.
Impressive (but not euphoric).

Very creamy and promising. However alcohol was detectable in aroma and in the drink itself. It is a nice one, though sourish yeast not for all. Spices are OK, bit not really up for cloves and pepper. Lemon acidity. Creamy middle mouthfeel. Did not go well with lunch, which is a good test for me for a beer I would have again.

Poured from a 330mL bottle into my Troubadour tulip glass. I've seen three label designs for this beer, this one is the full color version of the troubadour sticking his tongue out. An older bottle, it has a "best before" date of 8/23/2008 (over a year ago). I've had this several times though, and this sample hasn't really suffered from the age.

Liquid is between goldenrod and ochre with amber highlights and a towering ricotta colored head, receding to a tall hunchbacked cap, with intricate copper-stained (from the bottle-bottom yeast) streaks of lacing. If you had to drive through it, expect poor visibility thanks to the large quantity of yeast globules surging throughout the glass (brings to mind Fantastic Voyage).

Malt and esters in the nose, just as you would expect from the style. Banana, strawberry, vanilla, ginger, with rising bread dough and hints of champagne vinegar and young sourdough starter combine into a well integrated whole.

Slightly sweet toasted bread, fruit again (same as in the nose), and a pleasant array of spices (black pepper, clove, cardamom, and so on) on the palate. A little citrus, and mild yeast. Peppery, slightly dry finish, though the sweetness from malt persists. Well balanced - potent yet restrained all at once.

Medium-light bodied with medium-light carbonation, very middle of the road just as you would expect.

Gone in a flash.

With the slightly higher ABV than usual for the style, the poor clarity (unfiltered ale, after all) and the flavor profile, this beer transcends the style without going so far as to require a re-classification as a specialty. One of the "sleeper" ales that quietly gets everything right.

A hazy yellow-gold body with an orange cast reveals some particles in suspension (bottle conditioned). It's capped by a short but creamy, bright-white head that holds exceptionally well as it's buoyed by an effervescent carbonation; and leaves some very nice lace as it goes. The nose delivers a peppery spiciness above a lightly sweet vanilla. It's light body combines with a very fine and effervescent carbonation to leave it zesty on the tongue. The flavor is a touch spicy (black pepper, coriander), phenolic, and yeasty over a lightly honeyish and softly vanilla malt. A thin fruitiness (apples, pear) tries its best to squeeze past the spice and mingles with the malt. The spice disappears following the swallow, and it finishes with a dollop of sweet malt that dries to reveal a mild but bone-dry bitterness. Crisp, yet somehow delicate, and refreshing! An interesting beer with a good amount of drinkability.

Courtesy of BBF 2011. Poured from a corked and caged bottle into a Southampton oversize snifter.

Pours a thick, creamy 3 finger white head with excellent retention. Beer is a clear goldenrod. Lacing is patchy and thick with excellent cling. Fantastic!

Nose is robust clove, cane sugar, Belgian yeast, and sweet pineapples. Aromatic but I'm craving a bit more fruitiness and a little less spice here.

Opens biscuity. Clove and sugar upfront with a fair bit of spiciness and floral notes. Some sweet citrus and tropical fruit lingers in the background with some powderiness showing up right before the end. Finish is sweet straw with a sweet, pineapple peel aftertaste. Nice and subtle.

Light bodied with ample carbonation. Lively and prickly in the mouth and goes down abrasive and bubbly. Finish is messy with a long, lingering, filmy aftertaste. A bit too much at the end.

This offering is solid but a lacks a bit of character in the taste. Also, while I waited for this one to smooth out just a bit as it warmed, it never quite got there. Real sessionable though.

Pours a pale yellow with a fluffy white head. The aroma has vanilla notes with gentle spice and pepper. The flavor deviates with more of a subtle biscuit and a slight herbal hop flavor that grows into a big, bitter aftertaste and mouthfeel. The hops, while low in flavor, step up for the finishing bitterness to make for a unique Belgian (like so many other Belgians). Tasty and worth a try.

This beer poured a golden orange color with a very frothy white head on it. It was tough to really see what this beer was going to be all about because of the blizzard of sediment. I didn't know whether to drink it or spoon it out.

It smelled sweet and floral. Had hints of yeast and wheat in it.

The taste was about what it smelled like. Sweet up front and kind of malty but it was smooth and consistent throughout.

The mouthfeel was very smooth and didn't have any bite to it.

This was a relatively easy drinker but definitely one of those that I wish my glass was a black glass as to not see the floodwater effect that I was consuming. I'd be interested in trying this on tap or out of another bottle sans-sediment. I think without the imparted yeast flavor that this beer would be a lot better.